


Stacked Dice

by manic_intent



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Alternate Universe - Good Omens Fusion, Demon!Marcone, M/M, That Good Omens AU where Harry is an angel and Marcone is a demon, angel!Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 02:41:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19803055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: “I could kill you right now,” Marcone said. He always smiled a little wider when he said it, like he was joking. It used to creep me out a few centuries ago, then I just got over it. Fallen angels all tended to have their eccentricities. Particularly ones as old as Marcone.“You could try. Or you could ask yourself, is this friendly neighbourhood angel all out of juice, or does he still have enough soulfire in his pinky finger to kick your ass?” I was bluffing—I probably couldn’t manage enough soulfire right now to gently poach a chicken. Marcone probably knew it. We’d been squabbling over this piece of the Maker's earth for a very, very long time.





	Stacked Dice

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt by Amanda: Dresden Files, Dresden/Marcone, Good Omens AU. 
> 
> I don’t like writing crossovers, but in the case of Good Omens, I think that angel/demon in a city trope has long become more of a trope than a crossover…? It has an AU tag even. In any case, it’s one of the exceptions to my rule ;333 For Dresden Files, I’ve actually written a Good Omens story before for the kink meme, and I’m lazy, so here it is. The first part is the kink meme’s story—it’s probably easier for me to do it that way than for you guys to have to go to Dreamwidth. The rest is the story for the prompt. 
> 
> I haven’t read Dresden Files since Ghost Story and don’t intend to keep reading it, so this story will be based on a bunch of vague memories + wikipedia. It’s quite AU anyway, so if you haven’t read the Dresden Files before, you won’t need to in order to understand this story.

You don’t want to know what soaked angel feathers smell like. Also, they become as heavy as a pair of chimaeras. Musty, old-carpet-scented chimaeras. 

I dragged myself out of the lake, teeth gritted. As I rolled onto my back, my feathers made ugly squelching noises behind me. Somewhere to the east, Michael Carpenter—Holy Knight of the Cross, Wielder of Excalibur, slayer of the dragon Siriothrax, and happily married father of a ludicrous number of human childspawn—was coughing up water and taking the Maker’s name in vain. After a bracing afternoon spent slugging it out with a squid/fish monster in the chilly lake and getting mangled in the process, I couldn’t quite come up with the mental fortitude to reproach him. All in all, pretty normal for a day out. 

The sun was nice and warm. One of the Maker’s best creations, in my opinion. Delicious sunshine on my poor wings. I tried to enjoy the moment.

“Harahel.”

Of _course_ something wicked always came along. I closed my eyes briefly. “Marbas. Were you just in the vicinity, or did you just feel like trying your luck when I’m really not in the mood?”

“I don’t use that name any longer.” My least favourite demon had taken to wearing a fixed human form of late. I had to admit it suited him. The fallen angel looked like a handsome middle-aged man, tall and sleek and silver-haired, with cold, dusty emerald eyes. He looked down at me with a curl to his lip, arms crossed. 

“If you’re here to have a pissing match, I’m not interested. And if you don’t get going, I think my friend might start getting antsy.”

“Amoracchius’ bearer isn’t in any shape to hurt me right now. Nor are you.” Marbas—or Marcone, as he had taken to calling himself in his latest attempt to go native—smiled thinly. “You should’ve accepted my offer. A partnership of convenience, just like the one in London.”

“I’m a little more stubborn than Aziraphale.” I held up a hand, managing to concentrate just enough energy to will my fingers into flipping Marcone off. “Just go away, Marcone. Or whatever you're calling yourself.”

“I could kill you right now,” Marcone said. He always smiled a little wider when he said it, like he was joking. It used to creep me out a few centuries ago, then I just got over it. Fallen angels all tended to have their eccentricities. Particularly ones as old as Marcone. 

“You could try. Or you could ask yourself, is this friendly neighbourhood angel all out of juice, or does he still have enough soulfire in his pinky finger to kick your ass?” I was bluffing—I probably couldn’t manage enough soulfire right now to gently poach a chicken. Marcone probably knew it. We’d been squabbling over this piece of the Maker's earth for a very, very long time. 

“Have you ever tried talking to Aziraphale?” Marcone asked.

“Sure. He’s good company,” I said flippantly. “He said that his arrangement with that snake demon was satisfactory, etc. We agreed that different rules applied to you. Crowley’s isn’t like you. He’s reasonable and isn’t particularly dangerous. You're a tiger wearing a man’s skin.”

“And that’s so very different from a snake?”

“I know you. Besides, even if you were more like Crowley, I wouldn’t have made a deal.” I stretched my drenched wings out, trying vainly to catch a bit more sun. “It’s not my thing. I’ve told you this before many times. How about I buy you a tape recorder next Christmas? We could record this conversation and you could play it to yourself whenever you get lonely or whatever. It’ll save everyone a load of time.”

“How is Gabriel?” Marcone asked, so very ‘solicitously’, changing the topic. Lucifer's chosen all wore their guises well.

I refused to get annoyed, even though any mention of Gabriel usually irritated me. “The usual. Breathing down my neck, asking how many souls I’ve made all better, when am I going to get rid of the dark stain on my territory and so on.” Being a guardian angel of a territory wasn't a walk in the park, and annoyingly enough, angels are pretty bureaucratic. Yeah, you wouldn’t be able to tell from the propaganda, but we’d always been way more ‘red tape and requisitions’ than ‘hymns and hosannas’. “He means you, by the way.”

Even before the roll in the lake with the ice monster fish… thing… there’d been an accident at a school only days before that could have turned catastrophic, a coven of desperate homeless people who’d almost pulled something Very Bad from the Bone Plains when all they’d wanted was a warm place to sleep, and various other little incidents. Not to mention having to keep the Special Investigations division of the Chicago Police from getting eaten/burned/dismembered by all the shit they upturned. Then there was all the extra-weird shit that Marcone liked to pull now and then.

Something occurred to me. “You’ve been pretty quiet for a while. I mean, after the last thing you pulled at that human noise concert.”

Marcone inclined his head. “I’m considering a different approach.”

Hmm. Marcone had never given me prior warning before. “Give it up, I’ll thwart you eventually.” 

“We’ll see.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “You could save yourself all the trouble and property damage by just ‘fessing up to whatever you’ve done right now.”

“And miss out on all the fun?” Marcone chuckled indulgently and stepped backwards out of reach when I growled. “We’ll speak again later, Harry.” 

“That’s _Harahel_ to you,” I snapped. Only my friends got to call me Harry. Marcone vanished, leaving behind a dramatic cloud of black feathers. I waved them away from my face and rolled over. Forcing myself to my feet, dribbling water and wilting feathers, I trudged over to where the Knight of the Cross was lying on his side and groaning to himself. “Carpenter. Marcone’s up to something. We need to get back to Chicago and I don’t have the energy to teleport or fly. This means you’re driving. Chop chop.” 

Michael squinted blearily up at me. For a muscular guy in his fifties, he could really rock a pathetic stare when he wanted to. “I’m going to convert to Buddhism.”

“Shut up.”

#

Nothing caught fire in Chicago other than the usual. No weird monsters came crawling out of the sewers, nobody summoned up abyssal gates in Lincoln Park. “You’re _sure_ nothing weird happened recently?” I asked.

Captain Karrin Murphy of the Special Investigations division of the Chicago Police was tiny, blonde, blue-eyed, and sadly immune to angelic whining _and_ intimidation. Just like her father and grandfather had been before her. I’d been working with the Murphys since the CPD had an SI division—though they’d hilariously called it the Black Cat division at one point—and I’d pretty much been passed down through the generations like a family heirloom. Or a bad rash. 

Karrin eyeballed me across her desk. It was papered over with tabloid shit and reports, manila folders new and old. She had a laptop balanced precariously on a corner of the mess, one that she swore up and down always shorted out because it was ‘allergic to angelic whatever’. Crouching protectively against her computer, Karrin said, “Yes, I’m fucking sure, so fucking get out of my face, God.” 

“That’s a really hurtful thing to say,” I said. I rested my chin on a pile of reports and stared up at her with sad, sad eyes. 

“I seriously don’t have time to baby an overgrown stick insect of an angel… oh, don’t you dare, don’t…” Karrin exhaled loudly as I shook out my wings. In the limited space of her tiny office, that meant feathers all over the floor. “Sweet Jesus, you’re worse than a cat.” 

“That’s what I do when I’m not being taken seriously. I start manifesting minor miracles. It starts with the wings and works upwards. Soon you’ll have flowers growing up through the woodwork.” 

“There’s been nothing new, all right? No vampires, no rogue warlocks, nothing from the White or Black Councils. Chicago has been painfully normal for two entire weeks. It’s starting to weird me out,” Karrin said.

I perked up. “Weird you out how?” 

“We’ve been able to go home on time without pulling night shifts, that kind of weird. A good weird. It’s been hella good for my sex life.” Karrin smirked as I pulled a face. “I get that you’re worried about Marcone. He’s only been causing trouble for forever, hasn’t he? I mean, I don’t get why you don’t just gather up the White Council and the Knight of the Cross and kick his ass, but that’s just me.” 

“It’s a work in progress,” I mumbled. Fact was, I wasn’t sure if I _did_ have enough strength to get rid of Marcone. We’d had one throwdown centuries and centuries ago, during the War, and we’d come out about even. After that, we’d just never really gotten around to slugging it out. None of the other Assigned did. We told ourselves we were just biding our time, waiting for the Big One. In truth, it was more comfortable this way. We met our monthly targets. Crossed our t's, dotted our i's. Nobody needed to get discorporated. 

Karrin stared at me for a long moment. She dug through her paperwork and came up with a greasy folder. “If you’re bored, look into this.” She smacked it over my head. “Ron!” Karrin yelled. 

“Oh no,” I said, even as Detective Carmichael rolled on up and hauled the door open. 

Ron Carmichael had once been Karrin’s partner before she’d been handballed the eternal problem/embarrassment/dead-end posting that was the Special Investigations division. Carmichael had followed her into the posting out of sheer loyalty, to everyone’s astonishment, including Karrin’s. Going to SI meant torpedoing any hope of future advancement through the ranks. That was Carmichael’s sole saving grace, in my books. The man was built to bulk and too smart for his own good. He rabbitholed YouTube on his free time, which meant he combined a weird capacity for conspiracy theories with an equally weird degree of scepticism in the face of the divine.

tldr: Detective Carmichael firmly didn’t believe in angels. Being around him was like harbouring an insistent background headache. 

I folded my wings away the moment Carmichael stepped into the office. “Ma’am?” he said, even as he gave me the evil eye. 

“Take Harry here and look into Archer Station,” Karrin said. 

Carmichael gave her a wounded look. He liked being around me just as much as I liked being around him, which was to say we shared a healthy degree of mutual loathing. “Wasn’t that just clearly a crank thing?” 

“File still landed on my desk and we’ve been cooling our heels for weeks. Take a walk and take the angel with you,” Karrin said, which was how I ended up with my face mashed to the window of a patrol car while Carmichael took corners like he didn’t intend to live past tomorrow.

“By the way, if we crash, I’m not going to waste any juice healing you,” I told Carmichael as he narrowly missed side-swiping a Volkswagen Beetle. The little old lady in it stuck her head out of the window and screamed imprecations at us as we veered past. 

“Why do you bother?” Carmichael asked.

“Bother with what?”

“This jackass song and dance. You’re no priest and you’re certainly not an angel. Angels aren’t real. You’re just a too-tall, skinny conman in a coat who’s somehow managed to wrangle a monthly salary out of the boss.”

My headache worsened. I stared out of the window and the world beyond, which was rushing past way faster than it should be. “You depress me, Ron,” I said.

“Don’t fucking call me Ron, asshole.”

The last time I’d lost my temper and manifested in front of Carmichael, halo, wings, burning sword and all, he'd laughed and rolled his eyes and said he’d seen better special effects out of a 90s B-movie. That still hurt a little. Ignoring the heretic, I mashed my cheek to the grimy glass and listened to the car slowly breaking down around us. Patrol cars in the CPD were all in varying stages of decrepit repair—they were overused, often old, and literally run into the ground 24/7. Since Special Investigations wasn’t a fancy-ass division, it got the pick of the worst of the lot, and the one Ron was playing GTA with was a real clunker. It did its best not to die as Carmichael found parking near Archer Station and got out. 

To my surprise, Michael was lurking near the bus stop. He had a slim black golf bag slung over a shoulder that most definitely contained the Sword of the Redeemer/Amoracchius/Excalibur, and he jogged over with a sheepish smile as we got close. “Ron, hey,” Michael said, solemnly shaking hands with Carmichael.

“Mike. How’s the wife and kids?”

“Doing good, doing good,” Michael said, as I gave Carmichael a betrayed look. 

“How come Michael gets to call you Ron? Am I just a joke to you? Aren’t we coffee buddies?” I said. Carmichael rolled his eyes. I turned to Michael. “What are you doing here?”

“I got your text,” Michael said.

“That didn’t mean to come here,” I said, exasperated. “I was just letting you know that Karrin asked me to look into something, in case you were expecting backup on something else.” I’d taken to updating Michael on my business shortly after the Paradise Pup Incident. I wasn’t omniscient, OK? That was the Maker’s gig. Michael couldn’t expect me to be paying attention to what he was doing all the time, or answer all of his prayers. I was Chicago’s guardian angel, not his. 

I still felt bad that Michael was forever gonna be less one of his toes, though.

“That’s exactly it,” Michael said, with one of his This Is Very Serious Harry stares. “Nothing’s been happening. I haven’t seen even a gheist or anything for days. It’s unheard of. That’s why I’m here. I thought that if something’s finally come up, you might need my help.” 

I looked at Carmichael, who was busy scanning the area with a cop’s practised eye for bullshit. “How’s it that you think I’m a fraud but you have no problem whatsoever with a guy walking around with a big sword?” I asked him. 

“Mike’s a good guy,” Carmichael said, “and I ain’t one to be casting judgment on anyone’s choice of firearm. Or tool. We gonna do this or what?” 

“Lead on,” I said, shoving my hands into my pockets. 

The kid manning the Dunkin’ shop was unsurprised to see a cop, a tall skinny guy in a trench, and a middle-aged guy with a golf bag pile into his kiosk in the middle of the morning. Took all kinds. “Oh, that,” said the kid after Carmichael explained. “Wasn’t me. Was Janine who called the cops. She’s a bit y’know, high strung y’know, to be running the night shift yeah.” 

We slowly digested the kid’s aspersions on his colleague’s character. His nametag suggested that he was summarily unloved—someone out there had inflicted this spotty kid with ‘Khelvaster’ for a name. “Was this the first time that Janine saw—” Carmichael checked the beat cops’ statement, “—the ghost train?” 

“Yeah. Reckon she was making it up. Nobody seen the ghost train down here. Don’t exist. Being a ghost.” The kid stared at me, then at Michael, then back at Carmichael. “Thought cops only ran in pairs.”

“When does Janine’s shift start?” Michael asked. 

“Never. She quit this morning after she called the cops about the train. Said she wasn’t going to stand for being disrespected or whatever.” Khelvaster sniffed loudly. “You can probably find her at home. I’ll give you the address if you y’all buy a donut each.” 

“You should never breach anyone’s privacy like that,” Michael said very seriously, his gaze gentle gaze boring into Khelvaster’s dead fish eyes. “Especially not a lady’s. We might not have been the police. We might have meant her harm. Think on your sins, child.” 

“While you do that, give us the lady’s address, three cinnamon donuts, and coffee to go,” Carmichael said, patting himself down for his wallet. 

Michael had arrived on the train, which meant he piled into the back of the patrol car and ate his cinnamon donut in reproachful silence. After ten minutes of this, Carmichael cracked. “Mike, I’m sorry, all right? It’s faster this way. I’d have had to get a warrant otherwise to… What’s his problem?” Carmichael asked me when Michael stayed silent.

“He’s extremely Catholic,” I said, and sunk myself into the weird-smelling passenger seat. This was working out to be a spectacularly boring day.

#

Janine Matthews lived in Englewood, an impoverished neighbourhood in the South Side of Chicago that was supposedly one of the most dangerous parts of the city. It wasn’t that bad. The slow creep of gentrification had even begun to encroach into the district—a shopping centre with a Whole Foods opened a couple of years back, even. Jobs were still slow in coming though, and it had a reputation. Probably because it was a majority-black neighbourhood and humans were _still_ funny that way about skin colour.

Carmichael looked furtive as he checked his notebook and parked the patrol car on the sidewalk beside a crumbling old brick apartment block. “I don’t want to scare Miss Matthews, and we don’t have a warrant, so just let me handle the talking, yeah? Mike, you should probably stay in the car.” 

Michael nodded solemnly. A growing crowd was gathering near the patrol car. Some people even had their phones out, filming as Carmichael and I got out of the car. I didn’t blame them. Carmichael was obviously a cop, getting out of a cop car, and cops like him shook down people like them every day of the week. Or worse. 

We buzzed the ancient intercom for Janine’s apartment. “Who’s that?” she asked after a few minutes.

“Janine Matthews? It’s Detective Ron Carmichael of the CPD. I’d like to talk to you about a statement you made from last night?” Carmichael said. 

“Oh, hell no. I ain’t letting you into my house without a warrant. I ain’t even said nothing to them traffic cops. Didn’t call them like they said.” 

“All right, ma’am, I respect that and I understand. Would you be willing to set the statement straight over the phone, or come down to the precinct?” Carmichael asked. 

Janine didn’t answer. A curtain on the second floor twitched, and a caught a glimpse of dark eyes and caramel skin. Carmichael was about to buzz the intercom again when Janine’s voice crackled back on. She sounded subdued. “Not you, officer. But the angel with you can come on up.” 

Carmichael shot me an incredulous look. I gave him a thumbs up. “Yes ma’am,” he said, as the door unlocked remotely with a dull thunk. Carmichael didn’t say a word as I went through, heading up the steps to the second floor.

Janine was waiting for me outside her door. She was a young woman in her twenties with a glorious mane of curly black hair and sharp, assessing eyes, dressed in a bright yellow Pikachu shirt and blue jeans. “Shit,” she whispered as she looked me over. “Mama was right. Angels do exist.” 

I self-consciously looked over my shoulder. Nope. Wings weren’t out. “Oh,” I said. “You’ve got the Sight.” That was inconvenient. People with the Sight were rare, and I usually avoided them as much as I could. Picture walking past someone with x-ray vision, who could look right past your clothes to all the lumpy bits beneath. Yeah. That’s me and people with the Sight. 

“Me and my Mama before me. Rest her soul.” Janine gawked at me for a while more. “I thought y’all were the good guys. Why’s angels working with the feds? Y’all don’t see what they do? They shoot black kids on the street, man.” 

“Long story.” This was going to be one of _those_ encounters after all. It’s always tricky explaining the concept of free will and divine intervention to a human. You have to start with explaining that organised religion is a scam and work upwards from there, at which point most humans either think you’re a fraud (Exhibit A: Carmichael) or start poking their nose into your business even where it isn’t wanted (Exhibit B: Michael). “Can we talk somewhere more private?” 

“Roof,” Janine suggested. “No offence, but my niece and nephew are home with me, and I don’t know you from Adam.” 

“That’s completely fair,” I said. I liked Janine already. We went up to the roof, where we sat on old deck chairs by a crate. 

“I’d offer you a drink, except I don’t know what you’d like and we only got water,” Janine said. She smiled sheepishly. I tricked up a couple of glasses of icy lemonade and she gasped, then laughed as she took a sip. “Lemonade? Really? How old do you think I am, angel?”

“Older than your nephew, younger than the stars,” I said. Fancy language sometimes made humans more cooperative. 

Janine let out a snort. “If I couldn’t see your wings and your halo plain as day, I’d think you were just another hippie dickwad. No offence.” 

“None taken. Now. About the train?” I asked. 

“First I wanna know about your ‘long story’ with the cops.” Janine eyeballed me fiercely. She was almost as good as the actual Michael—not the Knight sulking over cinnamon sugar in the car, but Archistrategos Michael, Archangel of the Lord and all-round serious boss entity. 

“I’m the guardian angel for Chicago. Doesn’t have anything to do with protecting _individual_ humans, before you ask. More to do with ensuring that the cosmic balance is kept in check for this neck of the woods. Over the years I’ve found that it’s easier to just outsource parts of what I do to mortals. The Special Investigations Division of the CPD’s one of them. I’ve got a few other projects here and there. Making sure the supernatural stuff doesn’t spill over to affect people who aren’t in the know,” I said. 

Janine mulled this over. “I thought that protecting humans was what angels did,” she said. 

“It is. In general. That’s what I do, technically.” As a flow-on effect. 

“You know what I mean.” Janine flared. “Look at Englewood. Cops around every night. Kid got shot two weeks ago. He wasn’t doing nothing. Wasn’t even armed.” 

“The idea that angels are meant to intervene in general is a misconception. Check your Holy Book. Are there any stories about angels healing the sick, saving the poor, preventing people from getting randomly murdered and all that? No. Oh, we mess around with interesting people now and then when it’s part of the Plan, but for the most part, people aren’t our problem.” 

"Sounds half-assed to me," Janine said, "having the power y'all do and doing nothing."

"Probably," I agreed, "but it is what it is. Sorry."

“It ain’t a train,” Janine said, after she’d sat for a while in the sun drinking the lemonade. “Those beat cops, they like to drop by when I’m on a shift. Drop comments, hit on me, that kinda shit. They don’t do nothing more than that ‘cos of the CCTV. I usually just smile and sell them donuts. They ain’t that bad. I seen worse. Unlike most cops, they don’t expect freebies and they tip.

“Last night, Inglesias and May—that’s the cops—rolled in again. Was about past midnight. While they were chatting me up I saw it. Line of green fire, roaring down the track. Run from my left to right, lighting it all up like them aurora lights. I screamed. Ran out of the shop. The fire rushed by. I saw it flow into the playground at 34th street and disappear.” 

Janine drained the glass and put it back on the crate. “Inglesias and May ran out after me. They thought I’d seen someone who’d scared me. May even got his gun out. When I started talking about green fire going into the playground, he started to laugh. Said wasn’t I too old to be believing in ghost trains and all that. Among other things.” Janine pulled a face. “He’s such a dick. Anyway. Inglesias said they’d file a report with ’SI’. May asked him why even go into all that trouble, and Inglesias said he knew ‘Collin’ from ‘way back’ and ‘you’d never know’. After that, they got their donuts and left. I couldn’t wait to get home. I couldn’t face seeing that again.” Janine shuddered. 

“Something unnerved you about that fire?” I asked. 

“You mean, other than the fact it didn’t exist and was as tall as the station?” Janine let out a shaky laugh. “Oh yeah. Going by, it felt wrong to me. I don’t know how to describe it. Like somebody walking right on over my grave.”

#

Karrin was as annoyed to have Janine deposited into her metaphorical lap as Janine was to have been dragged into a police precinct. “Why is she here again?” Karrin asked after Carmichael had been tasked with scrounging up coffee and snacks. Janine sat outside Karrin's office at a spare SI desk, looking around the Pen with a rabbity expression.

“She has the Sight. You need her. Convince her to sign onto the police or pay her to consult. You’d be able to get through all that—” I pointed at Karrin’s paperwork, “—at three times the pace. Filter out all the junk.” 

Karrin brightened up. “That’s an idea. Why didn’t you find me someone like her before?”

“They’re rare and they creep me out,” I admitted.

That got me a funny look from Karrin, but thankfully she didn’t ask. “This magic fire thing she mentioned, what gives?” 

“I’m not sure. Which is why I’m going to be staking out the playground tonight. No reason to get SI involved yet.” 

“Right.” Karrin stared down at her desk. “If you need us, call.” 

The statement was always a nice thought, even though we knew it was only ever gonna be a thought. If I ever needed help that not even Michael could provide, I was better off ringing up to the Silver City and praying that I hadn’t yet pissed off all my siblings.

#

I didn’t bring Michael, despite his protests. It was maybe a little selfish. I’d fobbed him off by pulling mystical statements out of my ass, but in reality, I was itching to put the smackdown on something after two weeks of twiddling my thumbs. I perched on top of the beige-and-blue cone-topped tower by the monkey bars and waited for midnight.

No green fire. Not even a spark. I grumbled under my breath. I’d searched the area before finding a vantage point, and none of it had felt weird to me in any way. If it wasn’t for the blackened symbol burnt onto the grass by the basketball court, I’d probably have asked Janine to have a second look around. 

I couldn’t make out what the symbol was, and I’d had a healthy interest in this kinda thing since before humanity had an organised alphabet. It looked like a half-moon with spikes. Past midnight, I was about to put it all down to a coincidence when Marcone stepped out of the air over the sandy oval in the playground field. He stared up at me, hands tucked in his pockets, dressed in a pinstripe navy suit. 

“Harahel,” he said.

“Don’t wear it out,” I told him and attacked. 

What? I was bored. It’d been two weeks. Only places that Upper Management called ‘High Resonance Zones’ and what us grunts preferred to call ‘Hellhole Central’ got assigned guardian angels. Places where the veil between realities and dimensions were thin, where chaos mustered quickly and fed outwards as an infection. It meant a higher-than-usual incidence of crazy monster shenanigans, in other words. I’d gotten used to Chicago’s steady shower of shit over the years. Hadn’t thought I’d miss it until it was gone. I was ready to kick ass and here was an ass well-worth kicking.

Marcone sidestepped my charge and slapped aside the spike of soulfire I stabbed at his eye. After that, things got properly metaphysical. We don’t fight like humans do. We’re not restricted to one reality, or even one dimension. I only look human-ish most days out of courtesy, and because my true form would probably send my favourite hotdog and donut vendors running away screaming before they sell me any delicious calories. We wrecked the kids’ playground into twisted metal and slagged the sand into glass. We were still evenly matched. Sure, he fought dirty, but I’d always been stronger. Even when we’d both been angels. Especially since I hadn’t had to spend the last two weeks draining myself by holding the line. 

I got Marcone pinned at the end, twisting and churning over the basketball court. We burned through a hundred forms beyond human perception, forged out of nightmare shapes and limbs that humans had no names for. Somehow we both condensed into our human forms at the end by silent agreement. Marcone’s black wings were spread wide on the simmering ground, mine arched overhead. He was laughing.

“What’s so funny?” I said, annoyed. “I just kicked your ass.”

“You enjoyed yourself.” Marcone reached up. He stroked the knuckles of his hand lightly over my cheek and smirked as I jerked back an inch.

“What are you playing at? Were you behind the green fire?” I demanded. 

“Isn’t Chicago peaceful on a low resonance?” Marcone stroked his hands lightly down my flanks, under my coat. “Did you enjoy the break, angel?”

“Were you behind that?” I said, incredulous. “What in Heaven for?” 

“I wanted to see what you would do. Harahel, you’re more like me than you think.” Marcone’s fingertips tickled up to the roots of my wings, sparking a little pulse of pleasure. I slapped them away, glaring at him.

“I’m nothing like you. You’re Fallen.”

“What does that have to do with what I am?” Marcone’s hands settled lightly on my hips. I could deal with them being there. “I rebelled because I objected to the Metatron setting down rules about angelic behaviour. The Metatron is not God. God has long abandoned us.” 

“Y’know, this is why I don’t like Fallen. Nobody’s stopping you from being a punk bitch who doesn’t like the rules. Why’d you lot have to gang up along with Beelzebub and make life a shitstorm for everyone else? Can’t you people take a page from the humans and just go somewhere quiet to write emo beat poetry?”

Marcone chuckled. Talking shit at Marcone sometimes got the Fallen into a good mood, a sign that when he’d landed in Hell he’d probably landed head-first. He smiled indulgently up at me. “You think you’re stronger than me?” 

“I could probably discorporate you right now.” I shook Marcone lightly by the throat. “If I wanted to.”

“Why don’t you?” 

I hesitated. Sure, Marcone was the enemy. He was the instigator for this Resonance Zone, just as I was the guardian. An unstable Resonance meant an unstable fabric of reality, which had always suited Hell. Demons like Marcone fed off chaos just as willingly as they fed off corrupted souls. I should kill him. 

“It wouldn’t change anything,” I found myself saying. Hell would just send another instigator. Chicago was a plum strategic position. 

“Exactly,” Marcone said. He wasn’t smiling now, his green eyes boring into mine. “It wouldn’t change anything. All this. The skirmishes, the war. My plans and schemes, your work. It’s pointless. Our Father left us a long time ago for the stars.” 

“Satan’s still kicking around,” I said. That was part of the problem. “There’d be the Last War. The Antichrist, the whole shebang.” 

Marcone chuckled softly. “You think so? Surely you’re not that naive. The balance suits everyone as it is now. Angels and demons. The world that was given into our care might be dying more quickly than we hoped, but there’ll be peace between us even as it burns. Even when this world becomes inhospitable to most other lifeforms. We will remain.”

“Like roaches.” The thought of it was starting to depress me. The weather was getting bad everywhere. Seas dying. Animals going extinct every minute. Soulfire couldn’t do shit about that. Unlike the Archangels, I had no creation magic to my name. I got off Marcone, backing off a few steps. “Good fight,” I said, no longer in the mood for more. It was the closest thing to a truce that I’d ever offered. 

Marcone sat up but didn’t move. “It was my pleasure,” he purred. 

“You just _had_ to ruin the moment.”

#

Three more weeks of low resonance and I was ready to self-discorporate from sheer boredom. Besides, SI was maybe going to be disbanded, and I didn’t want that. Karrin, Carmichael, and the rest were no longer socialised for normal police work. Michael was going to need a real job at this rate.

Summoning demons wasn’t hard, especially for creepers like Marcone. There’s no real need to mess around with candles and blood and unsuspecting chickens. Demons know when you’re calling them. They just don’t always bother to show up. You stand somewhere quiet and shout their name until they either manifest or someone calls the cops. So as to prevent the latter bit from happening, I did my shouting in the penthouse suite of a hotel after housekeeping had come through. 

Marcone appeared within minutes. He settled onto one of the elegant armchairs, his black wings unfurling over the carpet and losing feathers into the thick pile. “Harry.” 

“I’ve told you, only my friends get to call me that.” My wings mantled behind me as I planted my fists on my hips. “Undo it.”

“Undo what?”

“Whatever you’re doing to the Resonance. Undo it. It can’t have just disappeared.” I’ve had Special Investigations, Michael, and my pet pack of werewolves trying to trace the Resonance. Far as I could tell, it’d been shunted interstate somewhere.

Marcone smiled mockingly. “Isn’t this what you want? Peace? No supernatural elements eating the locals? Everything chased off at the boundaries?” 

“That’s _my_ job,” I complained. “ _Your_ job is to be a pain in my ass. Neck,” I amended, when Marcone raised his eyebrows. 

“And I am. I don’t think I’ve seen you this deliciously frustrated for centuries.” Marcone’s hooded eyes swept lazily over me. “I rather like it.” 

“I should take it out on you,” I grumbled, except that I already had. It’d been fun for a while, then it’d stopped being fun. It’d been… boring.

Heaven, I really was starting to lose it. I rubbed my hand slowly over my face. “Aren’t you going to get into trouble for this?” I said. 

“Of course not. We’re having a good run right now in the world. Late-stage capitalism, rampant cruelty, unrest, inequality…” Marcone gave a languid wave of his hand. “We hardly have to do anything and tainted souls and chaos are falling out of everywhere into our laps. It’s a grand time to be a demon.” 

He had a point. Human newspapers depressed me. “So you decided to do my job.” 

“I didn’t decide anything new, Harahel.” Marcone uncurled to his feet, stalking closer. I stood my ground, curling my hands into fists, ready with a soulfire spike. Marcone must have sensed me gathering my power, but he stroked his palms up my arms, smiling as he drew even closer. “All these centuries and I finally have something you want. Darling.” 

Oh. 

“Excuse me _what_ ,” I said. 

Marcone chuckled. “Only you, Harry.”

“Only me what? Wait. So. The flowers. Every February. That’s you?” Mysterious bouquets of red roses always showed up every year on the doorstep of my townhouse. I didn’t need to sleep or eat, but it was nice to have a place to keep my stuff. Marcone inclined his head and I wrinkled my nose. “Valentine’s Day is such a fucked-up concept.”

“I know. It was Crowley’s idea, I think.” 

“The vinyls on Christmas Day? The books on Easter? All you?” 

Marcone looked mildly exasperated. “Who else?”

“I thought it was one of the human minions!” I’d just never asked. I mean. If the gifts were unmarked, I didn’t want to pressure everyone into trying to buy me stuff. I didn’t technically _need_ stuff. “Why didn’t you just say something? Instead of looming around like a creeper?” 

“Because I know you. I’ve known you since the Beginning.” Marcone’s cool lips brushed my forehead. I shivered, soulfire ebbing from my fingertips. “You would have mocked me if I was easy to ignore. Laughed and misunderstood and forgotten it in the next moment.” 

Marcone’s hands slid up my back, tickling into my wings. I had to push him away but I didn’t. It was true. I had known Marcone since we’d first been made. Before the stars were spun into light. Before the War, before the Fall. Somehow we’d never been too far apart. It’d just felt inevitable that we would circle each other together. 

Light and dark. I leaned in, drunk from revelation, nuzzling his throat. Like me, Marcone smelled of nothing at all. Like me, he could see beyond the skin I wore to everything that I was, just as I could for him. When I couldn’t ignore him. I looked deeper as we kissed. Human intimacy was a fragile thing, one that I decided that I didn’t mind. It was pleasant to touch Marcone when folded down into this dimension, to run my fingertips through his surprisingly soft feathers and watch him moan. It was something new. 

Marcone shed his clothes with a wave of his hand as he pulled me down onto the carpet. “Why did you call me here?” he asked as I followed suit, our limbs tangling. 

“I like hotels. They’re easy to set right. Unlike a certain playground, which you left as a smoking wreck.” I wasn’t even entirely sure if all the fixes I’d made were OK.

“Practical,” Marcone said approvingly. He thrust his hands into my feathers and _through_ , reaching for what I was beneath. I hauled him down and opened up for him, grasping for the truth of him in turn. Just as a true fight between us, intimacy for creatures like us was difficult to describe in mortal terms. We folded a private resonance between realities, entwined the pattern-energies of what we were over dimensions, learning each other in poetry, subsuming each other in verse. Marcone had long stopped being the sum total of his choices and become something more. Just as I had stopped being merely my function and evolved. 

We pulled each other back into simplified time with a gasp, our wings folded together and our mouths pressed against each other. Marcone had a slicked hand between us both, groping against my belly before he closed his palm against my humanform’s cock. The touch sent a jolt of knowing through me, a spark of simplified pleasure that was no less delicious. I groaned as Marcone ground blunt teeth into my throat, as he thrust against me. It was slippery and messy and more primitive than I thought. We did as mortals did until we lay spent and sticky on the carpets, catching our breaths.

“What did you do with all that resonance again?” I asked when we dressed. I should’ve felt a little more ashamed about all this, but then again, it wasn’t as though Heaven or Hell cared very much any longer. I knew that to be true. Everyone was just waiting for a war that nobody really wanted. 

“Shunted it to New York through the ley lines,” Marcone said.

“What,” I yelped. “Amandiel never said a thing!” 

“I recall you never liked him,” Marcone said, unrepentant. 

“Just… undo it. Now. Please.”

Marcone smiled, slow and catlike. He kissed me on the temple in a playful flourish. “As you wish.”

#

“Occultists just summoned the Wyrm-King Kzzrritt in Lincoln Park,” Karrin said when I picked up my phone. “Michael’s en-route. Ron and Janine are standing by if you need backup. Billy and the pack say they can get going if you need ‘em. Oh, and I’ve got a message from your stalker demon boyfriend too.”

“Just block him again, he finds it funny. Tell Michael I’ll meet him there. Everyone else can mind their own business.” I got off the nest of cushions I’d been curled on and set the book I’d been reading aside, stretching my wings. I whistled as I limbered up. Time to save Chicago again.

**Author's Note:**

> Refs:  
> https://wgntv.com/2013/08/25/its-englewood-12-hours-in-one-of-chicagos-most-dangerous-neighborhoods/  
> https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2014/05/23/whats-good-in-englewood_n_5360688.html  
> https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/englewood-photo-essay-tonika-johnson-south-side/Content?oid=29141044  
> ==  
> twitter: @manic_intent  
> about my writing etc: manic-intent.tumblr.com  
> 


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